Christine V. Lao is the author of the chapbook, Musical Chairs: Stories, a finalist of the 19th Madrigal-Gonzalez Best First Book Award. She was a fellow for poetry at the 59th University of the Philippines National Writers' Workshop. Her poems have appeared in Rabbit Poetry Journal, Social Alternatives, Likhaan, Dx Machina, and Kritika Kultura, as well as in the anthologies, In Certain Seasons: Mothers Write in the Time of Covid; Bloodlust: Philippine Protest Poetry from Marcos to Duterte; and Under the Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry. She teaches at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Oplan Triolet
We punish the act and bodies will pay. Bodies remember what minds forget. What were you doing? Weigh what you say. We punish the act. Somebody must pay. Bodies of vagrants, children, strays. Bullets feel neither remorse nor regret. Refurbish your facts. Bureaus will pay. Bodies remember. Minds will forget.
On most days, nothing
On most days, nothing. Nothing words can do. Today, terror. Tomorrow, new storms to sorrow into. The night siren lowed. We stood on our roofs, fed our words to the flood. Mud recedes. Seeds bloom into weeds. Need-nourished greed breaks open the pavement. Uncemented green shoots past fear. Flower us open, rain, take our death hour.